Giants safety Antrel Rolle speaks to the media Thursday afternoon and continues to rip Big Blue fans for booing the team Sunday. (Simmons/News)

Antrel Rolle admits that he is a "bigmouth" and is unapologetic about it. Thursday, however, the Giants' safety put his foot in that mouth and had to issue a scripted apology shortly after he compared his teammates to American troops returning from Iraq.

In an attempt to defend ripping Giants fans Tuesday for booing the team, Rolle said: "They want to make it that guys paid this much money for a ticket. Yeah, I understand that, I understand completely. We risk ourselves out there on the field each and every day also. When soldiers come home from Iraq you don't boo them. I look at it the same way. I take my job seriously."

Advertisement

Later, in a statement released by the team, Rolle said: "I used a very poor, inappropriate example earlier today to demonstrate how seriously I take my job. Obviously there is no comparison between the men and women of our military putting their life on the line defending our country and what I do.

"They risk their lives and that gives me the opportunity to play a game for a living. After I made my earlier comments, somebody even said to me: how would your father, who is the chief of police in Homestead (Fla.) and puts himself at risk every day, feel about the comparison you made? Again, it was a very poor, very inappropriate choice of words."

This is not the first time Rolle has created controversy with his mouth. His complaints after a Week 2 loss in Indianapolis about the "controlled" environment and lack of leadership in the Giants organization made headlines.

Rolle, a former Arizona Cardinal who is in the first year of a five-year deal with the Giants, believes he is speaking up for some of his teammates.

"When I speak I am not speaking on behalf of Antrel Rolle, I speak on behalf of the New York Giants. I know for a fact I am not the only guy that feels that way," Rolle said. "But once again, me as the bigmouth, I am the one that says something."

Rolle does not speak for all his teammates. Defensive end Osi Umenyiora, for one, said he understood the fans' frustration with the Giants' first-half performance on Sunday against Jacksonville.

"That's just the way the fans are," Umenyiora said. "They have every right to be that way. They are paying $120 a ticket to come watch us play. You can't go out and stink it up like that, especially in New York. As long as they are coming to watch us play, they can boo, they can do whatever they want to do. That's well within their rights to do that."